Presidential Address - Geological Society of America

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF EDWARD ORTON 

GSA Bulletin, v. 9, p. 85–100 (24 January 1898) Read before the Society 28 December 1897 

Geological Probabilities As to Petroleum 

Annual Address by the President, Edward Orton 

Contents 

Introduction 

Origin of petroleum 

Permanency of petroleum and its derivatives 

Inability of petroleum and gas to descend in the geological 

scale 

Inability of petroleum and its derivatives to rise from one 

formation to another 

Structure or arrangement of strata the dominant feature in 

accumulation of gas or oil 

Equality of pressure on the contained liquids and gases 

Duration of petroleum supply 

INTRODUCTION 

It has seemed to me that I can turn the hour that you 

allow me on this occasion to the best account in the 

discussion of some subject connected with petroleum and 

its derivatives. 

Petroleum has long been in the world. Man has been 

acquainted with it though much of his brief day. As soon as 

he “came to himself,” in the earliest stages of civilization, 

we find him making use of asphalt, one of the best marked 

derivatives of petroleum. Asphalt took a prominent place in 

his arts and commerce, and frequent mention of it occurs in 

some of the oldest records of the race. 

In later times asphalt, the representative of petroleum, 

lost to a considerable extent its relative importance, being 

replaced in several lines of service by other and more easily 

obtained substances, but within the last half of the present 

century the bituminous series, represented by petroleum 

and gas, has acquired and importance infinitely greater than 

it ever had before. It has become a factor, and by no means 

an insignificant one, in the commercial exchanges of the 

civilized world, and it has made contributions of 

inestimable value to the well being and particularly to the 

comfort of the human race. 

In this modern development the new world has taken 

the leading part. What may called a distinct branch of 

mining engineering, namely, the art of drilling deep wells, 

has grown out of it here. This art comes into close relations 

with the science of geology. It is hard to say at the present 

time which is the more indebted to the other, the art or the 

science. Each gives and each receives. 

The crust of the earth contains but few mineral 

productions that awaken such widespread interest as the 

bituminous series. The search for oil and gas is attended 

with much of the excitement that goes with the search for 

the precious metals, and success is in many cases as amply 

rewarded in the one as in the other. 

Geologists, especially if they concern themselves with 

the practical applications of their science, are constantly 

called on to answer questions with regard to petroleum, its 

probable presence in any given locality, its modes of origin 

and accumulation, the duration of its supplies. They have 

recognized these new demands, and discussions bearing on 

such questions have made large additions to the literature 

of the science during the last forty years. These discussions 

are still in progress, and important contributions to our 

knowledge of petroleum and its derivatives are being 

recorded in our own day. 

In view of these facts, and despite the well worn and 

hackneyed nature of the theme, I feel warranted in asking 

you to follow men in a brief review of the geological 

probabilities as to petroleum. I use the modest word, 

probabilities, in this connection because it seems in all 

respects the proper word. Geology is a historical science, 

and but few demonstrations of the sort that carry 

mathematical certainty find place in it. We have only 

probabilities as to all the dates of the science; for example, 

as to the date of the end of the Glacial period, let alone its 

beginning; as to the date of the advent of man. Nay, more, 

we have only probabilities as to the weightier themes of 

geology; as, for example the cause of glacial periods, the 

eruption of volcanoes, the formation of mountains, the 

condition of the interior of the earth. By what right, then, 

should we expect certainties on a subject that is one of the 

last to be considered in geology, and that is, by its very 

nature, complicated because of the fact that the geologist


must depend on the chemist for the ultimate decision of 

many vital points in the investigation? But I must remind 

you that there are probabilities and probabilities in geology. 

In other words, geological probabilities are of different 

orders. Some of them are so strongly supported that they 

count for certainties with many minds. In what respect they 

could be strengthened by subsequent discoveries it is hard 

to see; but we may still style our conclusions, even on such 

subjects, probable. 

ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM 

Among the geological probabilities as to petroleum, I 

mention first those which bear upon its origin. Geologists 

believe that petroleum is in all instances derived from 

organic matter—that is, they believe that petroleum falls 

into line with every other combustible body that we know 

of or beneath the crust of the earth. Everything that burns 

has borrowed its power to burn from the sun. It burns 

because it holds some of the sun’s heat and light 

imprisoned in the organic substances formed by these 

agents. Burning is the rapid restoration of this organic 

matter to the simpler state from which it originally came. 

To what other source can petroleum be referred? We 

are all familiar with the great chemical hypotheses that 

have been before the world the last 30 or 40 years. The 

names of their authors are a sufficient guaranty of the 

soundness of the chemical actions and reactions invoked— 

that is, of the chemical possibilities concerned. To one of 

these theories, which has somewhat more to commend it, 

or, rather, somewhat less to condemn it, than the other 

theories of the same class, the great name of Mendelejeff, 

the discoverer of the periodic law, is attached. In what light 

the postulates of this theory are regarded by chemists I am 

not able to say. These postulates, in substance, involve 

masses of white-hot iron, buried miles below the surface in 

the depths of the original crust, but still reached by water 

percolating from the surface and charged with carbon 

dioxide, the whole giving rise to a somewhat complicated 

series of chemical reactions out of which petroleum at last 

emerges. 

I repeat, I do not know how this theory appears to 

chemists, but to geologists it sounds like an echo from the 

eighteenth century. It goes back to Werner’s day and takes 

its place among the “cloud-capped towers and gorgeous 

palaces” of the speculations of the time when cataclysmic 

geology was in undisturbed possession of the field. 

The law of parsimony of force seems applicable to this 

case. It is not necessary to go so far as these chemical 

theories require for a source of petroleum, because there is 

always an organic source nearer at hand. We can roughly 

divide the rocks of the earth’s crust into two great series; 

those in which organic remains are more or less abundant 

and those in which no traces of life are found, either 

because life had not been introduced at the time of their 

formation or because metamorphic changes have 

supervened since their origin, by reason of which all such 

traces, if ever present, have disappeared. 

In the last named division neither petroleum nor any of 

its derivatives is ever found; all its occurrences are 

confined to the fossiliferous division. While the Archean 

rocks do not cover surface areas as large as the vast series 

formed in the ages of life, they are by no means 

insignificant in extent. Two million square miles in one 

continuous body, more than one-fourth of North America, 

are referred to this series in the Canadian protaxis alone. In 

the other continental masses a like distribution is 

recognized. 

Now, if the real centers at which petroleum originates 

are to be found below the Archean, in the primeval crust, 

according to Mendelejeff’s theory, the carbonated waters of 

the surface, essential to the process, would certainly have a 

shorter course in reaching these centers when descending 

through the uncovered Archean than by going down 

through thousands of feet of the stratified and fossiliferous 

rocks overlying them. It is hard, therefore, to see why, the 

whole world over, petroleum is entirely wanting in the 

Archean and exclusively confined to the stratified rocks. 

There is not an oil field in the world in rocks of Archean 

time. To this it may be replied that the absence of 

petroleum from Archean rocks may be due to the fact that 

porous rocks suitable for storage are not found in this 

series; but according to Mendelejeff the process of 

petroleum manufacture is in constant operation, and 

certainly any large stock produced within the last 5,000 or 

10,000 years, not to speak of the last 50 or 100 years, 

would have left some clue or token upon the surface. 

Page 2


Further, there seems to have been a notable increase of 

the bituminous series as the geological ages have advanced. 

The maximum of their production was apparently reached 

in the great division that immediately precedes the present 

order, namely, in Tertiary time; but this increase in the 

petroliferous series has gone forward contemporaneously 

with the decrease in the internal heat of the earth. There has 

been, however, a gain in the total amount of life which the 

rocks contain, and this roughly corresponds with the 

increase in the total accumulation of bituminous products 

above referred to. 

That the organic world is an adequate source of 

petroleum has been abundantly demonstrated within the 

last few years. The demonstration was begun by Warren 

and Storer in the distillation of a lime soap made from 

menhaden oil. In this operation various compounds 

belonging to the bituminous series were definitely 

developed. This work was made known to the world about 

1867–’68. 

Investigation was subsequently carried still further in 

this line and to still more striking results by Dr Carl Engler, 

of Carlsruhe, Germany, who has obtained from fish oil, and 

afterward from lard oil, almost the entire bituminous series 

to which petroleum belongs. In the list of the products 

which he thus obtained from the sources named are to be 

found illuminating oil, lubricating oil, benzene, and 

paraffine. Engler’s results were published in 1888. 

The animal world has thus been definitely proved to 

be, at least in its higher divisions, a possible source of 

petroleum and its various derivatives. And now comes 

Dr S.P. Sadtler, of Philadelphia, who has extended a similar 

line of investigation to the vegetable world as well. In an 

important paper read before the American Philosophical 

Society February 5 of the present year he made known the 

results of the work which he had recently carried on and 

which he still continues in the distillation of linseed oil 

under pressure. He obtained by this process hydrocarbon 

oils analogous to natural mineral oil or petroleum, and, 

among other products, he produced a good specimen of 

scale paraffine. It is altogether probable that oils derived 

from other vegetable seeds would show the same 

characteristics. The vegetable kingdom is thus shown to be 

on the same plane with the animal kingdom as a possible 

source of the bituminous series. 

Daubree, perhaps the most ingenious and successful 

experimental geologist of the century, advanced the same 

claim at a still earlier day. He declared that by the action of 

superheated steam upon wood he had obtained both liquid 

and gaseous products closely allied to petroleum. In his 

view the concurrent action of water, heat, and pressure on 

vegetable matter furnished an adequate account of the 

natural production. Engler’s discovery is worthily 

supplemental and balanced by Sadtler’s. From the latter we 

see how hasty and unwarranted the conclusion adopted by 

some, that the origin of petroleum always and everywhere 

is to be ascribed to the products of the decay of fishes. 

Closely related to this latter claim are the facts 

pertaining to the Trenton limestone oil field of Ohio and 

Indiana. This is unmistakably one of the most important 

reservoirs of petroleum that was ever discovered; but it 

originated long antecedent to the appearance of fishes in 

the geological scale. In placing it before the introduction of 

fishes I do not forget the recent discovery by Mr Charles D. 

Walcott, director of the Geological Survey of the United 

States, of fish remains in the lower Trenton of Colorado. 

Geologists have not yet had time to assimilate this 

remarkable discovery and to give it its due place in the 

history of the life of the world; but certainly these 

Ordovician fishes of Colorado might as well not have been, 

so far as the burial life of the world at large is concerned. 

Not a hint of the existence of one of them has been found in 

the well worked formations of Ordovician time in any other 

part of the globe. Vast periods of time elapsed after this 

date, periods measured by the deposition of many 

thousands of feet of the various types of sedimentary rocks, 

before fishes appeared elsewhere in the world. The 

petroleum of the Trenton limestone owes nothing whatever 

to the vertebrate type, so far as its sources are concerned. 

While geologists find such a warrant as I have 

indicated and much besides for believing in the organic 

origin of petroleum, it cannot be claimed that they hold 

concordant views as to the manner in which the conversion 

of organic tissue into mineral oil has been accomplished. 

They recognize the process as essentially chemical in its 

Page 3


nature and are prepared to welcome all pertinent facts and 

discoveries from students of this branch of knowledge. 

It is easy to see how the bituminous series may result 

from the destructive distillation of either vegetable or 

animal substances enclosed in the rocks, and wherever 

conditions can be shown that provide for such distillation 

we are not obliged to go further in our search. Destructive 

distillation can take effect on organic matter that has 

attained a permanent or stable condition in the rocks, like 

the carbonaceous matter of black shales or coal; but it 

seems improbable on many and obvious grounds that this 

can be the normal and orderly process of petroleum 

production. 

This production of petroleum must be in active 

operation in the world today; at least it seems highly 

improbable that a process coeval with the kingdoms of life, 

growing with their growth and strengthening with their 

strength, a process that was certainly in its highest activity 

throughout Tertiary time, leaving a most important record 

in the rocks of that age, should suddenly and completely 

disappear from the scene upon which it had wrought so 

long and upon which all other conditions appear to be 

substantially unchanged. 

What geologists would be glad to find in nature as 

matching to and harmonizing with the facts with which 

they are obliged to reckon would be a process in which the 

products of the organic world are transformed into mineral 

oil at ordinary temperatures and with complete 

consumption of the substances acted upon, so that no 

carbon residue would be left behind. They would also 

expect the transformation to be accomplished while the 

organic matter still retained essentially its original 

character. 

The demands of the chemists are much the same. For 

the origination of the petroleum of Pennsylvania, one of 

them, namely, Professor E.J. Mills, of Glasgow, Scotland, 

requires “long continued application of a gentle heat to 

some derived form of cellulose.” 

Whether such a process as the geologists are looking 

for is a fact of nature and susceptible of satisfactory proof 

or whether the demand for it is mistaken and irrational 

remains to be determined. Once and again support seems to 

have come to such a view from certain lines of reported 

facts. The testimony of G.P. Wall in 1860 to the effect that 

the production of petroleum could be seen going forward 

on the island of Trinidad, manifestly connected with the 

decomposition of vegetable tissue, has not been 

corroborated by later observers. Wall’s testimony was in 

itself impressive and it was used effectively by Dr T.S. 

Hunt. If it had been or could be thoroughly substantiated, it 

would go far toward settling the question at issue. 

Considerable weight has also been attached to the 

recent observations reported by Dr Oscar Fraas, of 

Stuttgart, on the occurrence of petroleum in certain coral 

reefs of the Red sea. Dr Fraas confidently refers the 

petroleum to the decomposition of the organic matter of the 

reef. This claim also, if fully sustained, would solve the 

problem as to the mode of origin of petroleum; but 

unfortunately the interpretation of the facts is not beyond 

question. Other explanations of the presence of the 

observed petroleum can be offered, which have at least a 

show of probability. If, however, further examination 

should confirm the claim of Fraas that petroleum is now 

forming in these reefs at the normal temperature of the sea 

and out of the organic remains of dead corals, the long 

controversy would be closed. 

The occurrence of petroleum or its derivatives in fossil 

corrals and shells has long been noted. The facts have been 

used by some as decisive proof of the conversion into oil of 

the organic matter represented by the fossils; but to this it is 

objected that the petroleum found greatly exceeds in 

amount what the organic matter in question could supply. 

The objection seems to me well taken. 

Its occurrence in peat bogs, as recorded by Binney, is 

not proof conclusive that it originated there. 

Any theory of petroleum production to be acceptable 

to geologists must provide for the use of the organic 

substances elaborated by the lower divisions of animal and 

vegetable kingdoms as well as by the higher. To limit the 

process to the fatty acids derived from the decomposition 

of vertebrates or to the oils contained in the seeds of the 

highest groups of plants would be ludicrously inadequate. 

As in the doctrine of orthodoxy, the geological test must be, 

Quod semper, ubicunque, ab omnibus. The great stocks of 

petroleum on which the world depends are practically 

independent of both these higher sources. As we have seen, 

Page 4


some of the oil fields antedate these divisions, not by 

millenniums alone, but by eons. 

We must not forget that the chemical actions and 

reactions which we set in motion laboriously and with great 

expenditure of force in our laboratories, in the great 

laboratory of nature appear to be the simplest and easiest 

possible character. Witness, for example the decomposition 

of carbonic acid in the cells of every growing plant. 

INABILITY OF PETROLEUM AND GAS TO 

DESCEND IN THE GEOLOGICAL SCALE 

It is probable that neither petroleum nor its derivatives 

ever descend in the geological scale. Petroleum is 

specifically lighter than the liquids associated with it in the 

rocks. These liquids are generally saline waters, and their 

gravity is greater than that of fresh water, sometimes by as 

much as one-tenth. Oil consequently rises in the rocks by 

means of this well-nigh universally distributed water just as 

far as the possibility of movement is allowed to it. Natural 

gas, the most common derivative of petroleum, in like 

manner rises as far as it finds any open was, but no 

agencies are known by which either petroleum or gas can 

be carried to lower horizons than those in which they 

originate. 

You will not fail to note an important consequence that 

follows from this principle, namely, that petroleum gas is 

as old as the lowest stratum in which it is found. 

In the town of Parish, Oswego county, New York, a 

well was drilled two years ago to a depth of 2,160 feet. It 

was begun in the Medina sandstone. The drill stopped in 

red granite seven feet below the surface of this last-named 

formation. The granite was of the same character that is 

found in the nearest outcrops of Archean rocks—that is, on 

the western boundary of the Adirondack region. The series 

through which the drill was descended was normal in every 

respect. There was found, successively, the Medina 

sandstones, red and white; the Medina shale, in 

characteristic showing; the Oswego sandstone and Pulaski 

shale of the Hudson River group; the Utica shale and a 

series of Ordovician limestones, 600 feet of which are 

referred to the Trenton. Below the Trenton, at a depth of 

about 100 feet and in accordance with the usual 

stratigraphical sequence of the district, a stratum of white 

Potsdam sandstone was reached. It was 47 feet thick, and a 

gas vein of fair strength and volume was found in it. The 

gas attained a rock pressure of 340 pounds when shut in. 

Immediately below the Potsdam a stratum of dark 

Cambrian limestone was found. It contains rather obscure 

traces of animal life, apparently referable to Cambrian 

trilobites, and below the limestone, at a total depth of about 

2,150 feet, the granite was reached, as above described. 

The discovery of gas in the Potsdam sandstone aroused 

considerable interest among the parties in charge, and it 

was deemed best to try the effects of a torpedo on well. A 

light shot was lowered, designed for the horizon in which 

the gas was found; but by a slight miscalculation the 

explosion took place somewhat lower than was planned, 

and, as it proved, in the granite formation in part. A quart 

or two of granite fragments, some of them an inch in 

diameter, were brought up by the sandpump. The gas 

supply was increased somewhat by the torpedo, but nothing 

came from the well in the way of practical results. But there 

are certain facts and suggestions on a scientific side that are 

not without interest. 

The gas struck in this well is of Cambrian age. It is 

thus practically coeval with Linguelella, Dicellocephalus, 

and their allies. It is probably the equivalent but altered 

form of a small stock of petroleum derived presumably 

from the decomposition of Cambrian trilobites and 

brachiopods. The Cambrian gas belongs, we may be sure, 

where it is found. It is in its original home. There is no 

source from which it could be derived in the granite 

foundations that underlie, and it cannot have come from 

above. Let alone the constant and insuperable opposition of 

gravitation to its descent through heavier liquids, the shale 

roof of the Potsdam, which proves itself able to withstand a 

gas pressure of at least 340 pounds to the square inch, 

would have had to be penetrated if any supply had come 

from above. 

No; we have reached at last a point of beginning. There 

are no mysterious depths below on which we may draw in 

imagination for the material from which the petroleum 

represented by the gas here found, could be generated or 

for the heat that should effect the dry distillation of organic 

matter or for a hiding place for the carbon residue that must 

necessarily attend the process of destructive distillation. If 

Page 5


the dark color of the limestone is referred to the carbon 

residue, then such residues are found without end in all 

dark colored rocks. 

The stratum that here underlies the Potsdam sandstone 

is, as I have already said, a dark limestone, never more than 

40 feet in thickness and sometimes much less. Fragments of 

the limestone 2 to 3 inches in length have occasionally been 

brought up from the wells, and in them we are able to study 

the character of the stratum. Like most deep limestones, it 

is compact and hard to drill. Because of this character, it 

has sometimes been named “black granite” in the well 

records; but there is not a trace or hint of metamorphic 

action about it. The contrast between the dark limestone 

and the red granite that underlies it is always immediately 

apparent to the driller. Innumerable but unidentifiable 

fragments of trilobite crusts make a prominent part of its 

substance. There seems to be very little material in it from 

which petroleum production could be maintained even by 

dry or destructive distillation. 

A dozen or more other wells have been drilled to the 

granite in the same region. All of them agree in their 

records. The two principal strata below the Trenton 

limestone are the Potsdam sandstone and the dark 

limestone, already described. The drillings brought from 

these horizons seem normal in every respect. Certainly 

there is no hint of any transformation by heat. “The smell 

of fire has not passed on them.” There is no carbon residue. 

The bituminous products found in them cannot therefore 

owe their origin to the usual form of destructive distillation. 

In following the discussion to this point, I come upon a 

theory that is sometimes met in the speculations of our day. 

It is to the effect that the great stocks of our oil fields—the 

oil fields of Pennsylvania, for example, distributed through 

a half dozen distinct horizons and through thousands of feet 

of vertical range—have all been derived from a common 

and deeply buried source; and, further, that both gas and oil 

have been purified in the process of ascent, the highest oil 

in the vertical series being the highest in chemical character 

as well. 

INABILITY OF PETROLEUM AND ITS 

DERIVATIVES TO RISE FROM ONE FORMATION 

TO ANOTHER 

I remark, therefore, in the fourth place, it is probable 

that petroleum and its derivatives are unable to rise in the 

geological scale from one porous formation to another. In 

other words, the principal deposits are hermetically sealed 

in the strata that contain them. 

I have already recognized the obvious fact that in a 

homogeneous and permeable formation there must always 

be the movement that gravity would cause in separating at 

different levels the oil, gas, and salt water contained in it. 

Such differentiating movement would of course go on 

when oil rocks are, by the warping of the crust, bent into 

low arches or monoclines. Oil rocks also rise to day in 

natural outcrops, and more or less movement of their 

contents is rendered possible and necessary in this way. 

There are also numberless fractures and faults beside, by 

which the contents of porous rocks can reach the surface. 

The “surface indications” of gas and oil, of which we hear 

so much, are principally due to these last-named facts. 

Characteristic examples of such fractures are found in 

Pennsylvania and Ohio fields; but sound observation seems 

to show that every deeply buried oil and gas rock is, in a 

normal state, hermetically sealed, and no communication in 

the vertical scale is possible between the porous rocks of a 

single section. 

For the establishment of this probability I must again 

draw upon the experience that has been accumulated in 

New York within the last few years. In Oswego and 

Onondaga counties, of this state, natural gas has been found 

in large volume in wells drilled into the Trenton limestone. 

Near Baldwinsville, Onondaga county, the Monroe well 

was drilled in the late autumn of 1896. It reached the 

surface of the Trenton limestone at 2,250 feet. At a depth of 

120 feet in this stratum a vigorous gas vein was struck, the 

rock pressure of which reached the amazing figure of 1,525 

pounds to the square inch. I read for myself in August last a 

pressure of 1,370 pounds to the square inch on the gauge of 

this well after its gas supply had been drawn steadily for up 

to four months. 

A rock pressure of 1,500 pounds to the square inch 

stands for, nay, demands, a hermetic seal. Think of it a 

Page 6


moment! If there had been a drill to go down 150 years 

ago, when northern New York was still covered with the 

primeval forest, the same pressure would have been found 

here; if when Columbus discovered the New World, 400 

years ago, it would have been the same; the same when the 

Christian era was begun, 1,900 years ago, by the birth of 

the babe in Bethlehem; the same when Romulus and 

Remus were herding their flocks on the seven hills of 

Rome; the same when the Pharaohs were quarrying the 

nummulite limestones out of which the pyramids were 

built. Can even the semblance of a reason be given why the 

pressure should have been any less when the nummulites 

were growing in the Tertiary seas? 

All the events and epochs which I have named are “but 

as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night” 

compared with the ages that have gone by since the 

petroleum from which the gas was derived was store in the 

Trenton limestone of northern New York. 

Now, if the rock cover of a gas field is to any extent 

permeable, it would certainly seem that a pressure of over 

200,000 pounds to the square foot, for this is what 1,500 

pounds to the square inch means, ought to be able to find 

the open way. Any rock which withstands such a pressure 

for thousands and millions of years might as well be 

labeled “no thoroughfare.” Similar reasoning will apply to 

pressures of one-half, one-fourth, or even one-tenth of the 

1,500 pounds which was registered in the Monroe well. 

If it had been possible for this imprisoned gas to 

escape at any measurable rate with a pressure of 1,500 

pounds to the square inch, then the present figures must 

indicate a remainder of pressure after thousands and 

millions of years of waste. If the gas has ever escaped it 

should be escaping now. If it is now escaping, the pressure 

must be steadily falling unless the supply is being 

constantly replenished; but there is no source of supply 

except by the destructive distillation of the organic matter 

of the rock, and there could be but the feeblest possible 

supply from this source. The underlying rocks show no 

indications of having been subjected to the process of 

destructive distillation or to any unusual degree of heat. In 

fact, they distinctly negative such a supposition. In the case 

of the Monroe well, the 2,800 feet of overlying rock 

included several sandstones which could well enough 

become gas rocks if there were any source of gas at hand. 

In fact, these very strata are found to be important gas rocks 

in numerous instances in this immediate region. In the 

Monroe well, however, while the sandstones were normal, 

as respects thickness and grain, all of them were found 

wanting in gas to any unusual degree. In other words, while 

the reservoirs were present they were practically empty, 

and yet a great volume of gas under a tremendous pressure 

lay securely stored only a few hundred feet below them. 

Not a sign of the presence of this gas had ever escaped 

through the thick cover already noted, and probably no one 

would claim that oil would pass through strata impervious 

to gas. These facts, I submit, do not seem consistent with 

any freedom of ascent of the bituminous series from 

stratum to stratum. I accordingly repeat the proposition 

with which I set out, namely, that it is probable that neither 

petroleum nor the gas derived from it can rise through the 

impervious rocks that cover them. In other words, by 

impervious we mean impervious. 

STRUCTURE OR ARRANGEMENT OF STRATA 

THE DOMINANT FEATURE IN ACCUMULATION 

OF GAS OR OIL 

It is probable that in all accumulations of oil and gas 

the structure or arrangement of the strata involved is the 

dominant feature. This conclusion is clearly a probability 

of the first order. A dozen years ago there were a few 

voices raised against certain applications of this doctrine, 

but at the present time I know of no opposition whatever to 

it. It harmonizes so well with the teachings of physics and 

its applications are so obvious and convincing that 

reasonable men cannot easily find standing place for an 

attack upon it. 

I will not weary you with a repetition of the thrice-told 

tale of anticline, syncline, and monocline, but will only add 

that the controlling influence of structure comes out more 

and more clearly as the oil and gas fields of the world are 

adequately studied. The latest confirmation comes from 

Burma. Dr Fritz Noettling’s excellent work on the 

Geological Survey of India, brought down to 1895, fully 

establishes the fact that the oil fields of the Irawaddy, 

famous for more than a century, conform in all particulars 

to the laws of structure that have been worked out more 

Page 7


fully than elsewhere in the great oil fields of the United 

States. He shows, what we might have been ready to accept 

without demonstration, that anticlines and domes of 

Miocene sandstone exert the same influence in the 

accumulation of gas and oil that like features exert in the 

Devonian sandstones of Pennsylvania or the Ordovician 

limestones of Ohio. 

EQUALITY OF PRESSURE ON THE CONTAINED 

LIQUID AND GASES 

In the sixth place, and finally, it is geologically 

probable that in the fields where salt water rises from 

deeply buried porous rocks under artesian pressure the 

same pressure will be exerted on the gas and oil which with 

the salt water, are the join tenents [sic] of the rock. In other 

words, the rock pressure of gas wells in certain districts is 

due to the salt water that follows the gas, and it can be 

measured by the height to which this water rises above the 

gas reservoir. In my judgment this probability, when duly 

qualified, also belongs with the few that are of the first 

order. The facts derived from the gas fields of Ohio and 

Indiana seem to me to constitute a demonstration of this 

claim, but as several well known geologists, especially 

interested in petroleum, have emphatically dissented from 

this view, we are not warranted in claiming more for it, to 

say the least, than for the conclusions which have been 

previously stated. 

The theory referred to was from the first restricted in 

its application to districts in which the water found in the 

porous rock with the gas and oil rose under unmistakable 

artesian pressure and to the same height throughout the 

field. Shale gas was from the first distinctly recognized as 

demanding a different explanation of its pressure. 

In regard to the salt-water fields, there is probably but 

one date in their history when the artesian theory can be 

fairly applied or tested. That date is at the very opening of 

the field. There are great differences in the degree of 

permeability in different portions of what is essentially a 

porous rock, and vast periods of time have been available 

for the pressure of the distant head to make itself felt in 

every pore of the water-bearing stratum. The first wells 

drilled in a district may be able to avail themselves of the 

normal pressure and to exhibit the normal rise of the salt 

water, but it is conceivable that after wells have been 

drilled in the same field by the score, the hundred, or the 

thousand, the original conditions may be materially 

interfered with, at least for the time being. The gas and oil, 

in the storage and adjustment of which ages have been 

used, may have been released and brought to the surface in 

weeks or even in days, and the salt water may be altogether 

unequal to the task of occupying the new territory open to it 

on such short notice. Years may be required for its 

movement where minutes are allowed. 

So far as known, but a single important gas field has 

been taken in time to furnish a thoroughly reliable record. 

In the Trenton fields of Ohio and Indiana all the facts were 

noted at the beginning of their development, and the record 

accompanied the development, pari passu. From the facts 

thus gathered the artesian theory of gas pressure finally 

grew. I find it impossible to believe that the remarkable 

coincidences between observation and theory in these cases 

can be fortuitous. That the theory does not find support in 

the latter experience of the Pennsylvania fields is no ground 

for surprise. Two explanations of this want of agreement 

are possible, as well shall presently see. The theory would 

not find support in the later stages of the very field from 

which the initial facts for its foundation were gathered. The 

salt water still rises in some wells to the same height as 

formerly, namely, 600 feet above tide, but the rock pressure 

of the gas ranges from a quarter or an eighth of the original 

figure to zero; but every step of the decline has been 

observed and noted. The figures that entered into the 

original theory were facts at the time they were used, and a 

rational explanation can be given of the conditions that 

have since supervened and are now existing. That another 

element can enter into this rock pressure I have always 

recognized. This element is the expansive power of the gas 

itself. It is seen especially in shale gas fields, where no 

water, fresh or salt, is associated with the gas. In such cases 

the artesian theory, of course, is not applicable. 

The highest pressure that I have noted in shale gas 

wells previous to the last summer was less than 200 pounds 

to the square inch. During the present year I have had an 

opportunity to study the gas production of central New 

York, and to my surprise I found that the gas derived from 

the Trenton limestone in that region exhibits the 

Page 8


unmistakable characteristics of shale gas. One anomalous 

and thus far inexplicable fact, however, comes into view in 

connection with it, namely, its amazing rock pressure. I 

have already stated the initial rock pressure of a single well 

as 1,525 pounds to the square inch, a higher figure than 

ever recorded before in gas wells of any description, so far 

as my knowledge goes. 

This rock pressure bears a certain relation, thus far 

undetermined and unexplained, to the depth at which the 

gas is found. I do not propose to consider this subject now, 

but it is evident that the extraordinary figures found in this 

field require us to add an important qualification to the 

artesian theory of rock pressure. 

Trenton limestone gas, whether found in reservoir 

rocks associated with salt water or in thin bedded 

limestones or shales which carry no water, has the same 

chemical and physical properties, and the compression 

under which it is found must have the same root in both 

cases. That root, as the later facts show, is not the weight of 

the salt-water column, as I once believed, but the expansive 

power of the gas itself, modified in some unexplained way 

by the thickness of the overlying section. In cases where 

the artesian theory of rock pressure is applicable, the 

compression due to the expansive power of the gas is less 

than that which the weight of the salt water gives, and is 

therefore marked and measured by the latter elements. This 

is the qualification which the new facts oblige us to add to 

the artesian theory. 

DURATION OF PETROLEUM SUPPLY 

I have now completed the task which I set for myself. I 

have pointed out some of the principal geological 

probabilities as to petroleum and its derivatives. I hope that 

you will not find reason to complain of an undue amount of 

subjective color in my statements. 

I am well aware that there are within the limits of our 

ever widening science many larger and more important 

subjects than that which I have brought before you, but this, 

too, deserves its “day in court.” In fact it has some peculiar 

claims on geologists. Petroleum is a form of stored power, 

and geologists know better than other men the priceless 

value of such accumulations. They know that on them the 

well being and progress of the race largely depend, and that 

without them civilization cannot long maintain the pace 

which the nineteenth century has set. They know that these 

stocks of buried light and heat and power are small at the 

best and demand the most careful husbandry. They know, 

too, that petroleum and its derivatives, by virtue of their 

essential characteristics, are especially exposed to the 

wastes that come through ignorance, recklessness, or 

speculative greed, or through all combine. It is this liability 

that constitutes the peculiar claim of which I made mention 

a moment ago. It will be a reproach to our science to have 

the experiences of Oil Creek, Pittsburg, Findlay, and Baku 

indefinitely repeated. It will be a lasting reproach to have 

the important exploitation of petroleum restricted, by the 

exhaustion of its stocks, to the century in which it has 

begun and 50 years of which still remain. 

Edward Orton 

Transcribed from the original GSA Bulletin article for posting on 

the Web in June 2013. 

Page 9

Presidential Address - Geological Society of America

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?